


Not What I Meant

by StarsAreMassive



Series: Ned Lives [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Game of Thrones AU, Gen, Gendry goes to Winterfell, ned lives au, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsAreMassive/pseuds/StarsAreMassive
Summary: The Starks get out of King's Landing and Arya is concerned about her new friend. Ned tries to soothe her fears.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Arya Stark & Ned Stark, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: Ned Lives [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1292846
Comments: 13
Kudos: 144





	Not What I Meant

Keeping Arya confined to the wheel house was an impossible task. Ned had known it before they had flitted from King’s Landing. Even though it was the most modest one he could have possibly acquired (his sweet Sansa was not meant for riding), Arya still turned her nose up at it. She escaped its confines three times before he gave up and let her share his saddle, secure in his arms in front of him.

If Ned thought that would have been enough to pacify her and keep the wild girl still for five minutes, he was sorely mistaken. She fidgeted impatiently, and kept twisting in her seat left and right, craning her neck to look behind them.

“If someone were following us, we would know it by now,” he tried to reassure her.

Arya glanced at him wide-eyed and blushing, moving quickly to sit properly in the saddle. “I know. That wasn’t – nevermind.”

Ned frowned and, sneakily as he could, turned to look where Arya had been peering. And really, he should have been surprised, or disapproving, but he wasn’t. For twenty feet behind them, just in front of the wheel house, walked Robert’s bastard blacksmith apprentice boy.

Ned nearly laughed but settled on a quiet sigh, and quirked his brow at his daughter. Subtle as she thought she was, his little girl had a lot to learn.

“Your friend’s a quiet lad, isn’t he?” Ned asked.

Arya wriggled. “I was just…checking.”

“Well he’s not fallen down,” he chuckled. “Would take a stampede of wild horses to knock him over, I reckon.”

Arya laughed at his teasing. “He made himself a bull’s helmet did you know father –“ Ned nodded even though she couldn’t see him –“so that’s what I call him.”

“A bull?”

“A stupid one.”

Ned huffed, amused and exasperated and felt a quick flush of gratitude that the large, quiet boy seemed partial to his daughter, and not prone to offense at her loose tongue.

“That’s not very nice, is it? I thought you were supposed to be his friend.”

“We are - I am!” Arya was quick to protest. “I just…“

Ned prompted her. “What is it, sweet one?”

“I hated it when we all had to leave home,” she mumbled and Ned ignored the sting in his heart. “I just wanted to see if Gendry was okay. I didn’t think when you asked him to come with us – I was too excited. But what if he misses his home, too?”

A rush of pride filled Ned’s chest and he held Arya a little tighter. How he had managed to raise such wonderful children was beyond him. He was inclined to think Cat was mostly to thank for it. But Arya – Arya was something different; his daughter who looked so much like his sister and had her spirit, too. She loved as fiercely as she fought, despite how ardently Cat tried to collar her into being a proper young lady. And this lad, this Gendry, seemed to have earned her loyalty. 

“Well,” he said after a moment. “Good thing he has you then. I’m sure you’ll make him feel very welcome, Arya.”

Arya’s little spine straightened with the praise and she nodded fervently. “I’ll spend all the time I can with him father. I swear it.”

Again, Ned fought down a smirk. “That’s not quiet what I meant,” he teased.

Arya turned and gaped at him, blushed heavily with embarrassment, and sharply looked away. “That’s – I didn’t mean it like _that!_ He’s a smelly boy!”

Ned laughed heartily and let his little one rant herself away. He remembered their talk back in that cursed city, and how she had scoffed when he’d promised her castles and lords and princes. _“That’s not me,”_ she’d said. And as he cast a final look at the blacksmith trailing behind them, he thought that perhaps, that's exactly what she meant.


End file.
